1. Milkman is the central character in Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon, but there are two strong women in his life who give him direction and who hold the family together over time. One is his sister, Corinthians Dead, and the other is his aunt, Pilate.
The character with the greatest knowledge of the family, and the character who imparts this knowledge to Milkman, is his aunt Pilate. Pilate is the holder of the history of the family. As a woman, she knows all that history and is also the only one still present to pass that tradition on, since the men of the family have all disappeared in their quest for something they do not understand. She passes this tradition on through her singing rather than through her story-telling, though her singing is her way of conveying the family story.
Milkman is unusual in the way he got his name. Pilate is also unusual for a different reason, though it is also associated with her birth and early life: Pilate has no navel, as if she were not born of woman. Supposedly this gives her the power to see what others cannot. Her father tells her to sing when she feels the need: "To sing, which she did beautifully, relieved her gloom immediately" (Morrison 148).
Milkman's sister, named Corinthians Dead, has had to watch the decay of the male portion of the family. She sees them as children and she sees them as men, and there is little difference in her mind. None was ever able to find a place for himself in society. Each generation has been lost, and now Milkman is the male remaining and the hope for the future. Yet, she sees that already he is not a full human being and that he has never learned to give of himself or to understand the needs of another.
Corinthians Dead herself is a woman who should have had an opportunity in the world but who has been denied this by the aforementioned double discrimination of the white male society. Corinthians is a bit of an anomaly, an...